Introduction

Tourism has become a global industry with increasing impacts on environment, regional and local development. In many southern African countries, tourism provides new opportunities, jobs and economic benefits for local communities. Currently, many countries in the region perceive tourism promotion as a suitable and relatively inexpensive strategy that can be used to attract foreign direct investment (Binns & Nel, 2002). As a result of growing tourism activities, many places and rural areas in the region are tied to the global industry and related cultural, social, economic and political networks. Thus, tourism has become an important policy tool for community and regional development in southern Africa (Rogerson, 1997). Tourism also has a significant potential to influence and change the use of natural and cultural resources in the region. This potential has highlighted the role of sustainability in tourism development and has turned tourism into not only an economic but also a social and political agent that affects a wider natural and socio-cultural environment in various ways; for example, sustainable utilisation of natural resources and improved quality of life of the communities living adjacent to tourism resources.

The attractiveness and recent success of southern Africa in tourism development has been based on its diversity. The White Paper of Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa (Government of South Africa, 1996), for example, states that the attractiveness of the region is based on relatively accessible wildlife, beautiful scenery, unspoiled nature, diverse traditional and township cultures and pleasant climate (see also Ministry of Environment and Tourism, 2005; Rogerson & Visser, 2004). Similarly, other countries in the region base their strengths on the natural environment and, increasingly, on cultural settings (Saarinen, 2007; Van Veuren, 2001; World Travel and Tourism Council, 2007).